Little Walter

Tom Waits, Saved and Named Seeds (Heirloom Tomato). From the book WAITS/CORBIJN ’77-’11, 2013.

WAITS/CORBIJN ’77-’11 is a new book of photographs by singer/ songwriter/ actor/ poet/ artist Tom Waits and photographer/ director Anton Corbijn taken over the course of a 35-year friendship and collaboration. Notes the publisher’s blurb:

Waits’ vibrant persona helped Corbijn define his narrative, cinematic style of still photography: images that felt as if you were coming in on the middle of some unfolding drama. In turn, Corbijn helped Waits evolve his visual style into a new theatrical self that synced beautifully with the experimental music he was making with Brennan. And lead him to his own photography, collected here for the first time under the title “Curiosities,” a visual handle to the artistic intelligence millions of fans know only through his music. Photographs of Tom Waits by Anton Corbijn, photographs by Tom Waits of the vivid quotidian, stretching down through the years, and presented for the first time in a beautiful clothbound book; side by side, these 226 images record one of the longest and most fruitful collaborations in the careers of both artists.

I love this artwork above, where Waits identifies the “seeds” of his artistic self with the literal seeds of a smashed tomato, that traditional symbol of fan revolt against artists, making this both a homage and an insurgency. You can see more of Waits’ visual work, replete with stains, poem fragments, desperados, shadows, jackrabbits and the detritus of abandoned dreams, in the photos section of his website.